


Strange Infatuation

by Jennifer-Oksana (JenniferOksana)



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Crushes, F/M, Season/Series 02, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 11:51:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5927341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JenniferOksana/pseuds/Jennifer-Oksana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scully, between desire and the need to help her friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strange Infatuation

 

She walks into the airless, crowded room and her heart skips a beat when he's not there. She has to get to him, because he needs her. He needs to hear what she's saying, they all do, it's very important she tells him about Duane Barry. He's dangerous.

Alex, the bright-eyed beaver boy, is buzzing around the room, wasting air, raising the temperature. Scully turns her eyes on Alex and hates him passionately for a moment. This slick, limp-wristed thing gets to be near Mulder every day, while she has to maintain a distance. It's not wise or safe to admit that the physical distance is what's driving her crazy slowly. If she wanted, she could call Mulder any night and he'd be there, just to talk. But she wants his presence. Why does she want presence?

There might be some chemistry there she refuses to admit. There might be a strange current running between two strong people, who trust each other implicitly, one that has nothing to do with the bonds of partnership or professional admiration. She is more than willing to admit that Fox Mulder is a brilliant, if eccentric mind who has an amazing devotion to his work. Fox Mulder is Lancelot--

She catches herself right there. Lancelot? That's a sign of this dangerous feeling running between them. Certainly, Mulder is good at what he does, and an admirable person, but why does she immediately think of Lancelot? And Lancelot is the perfect metaphor-- the parfait gentle knight, but flawed and gloriously human because of it. Mulder is no Galahad. And maybe she, Scully, is Gareth. Does that mean Mulder might lop off her head by mistake in his ardor? And what head--? Oh, what on earth is wrong with her?

Alex is buzzing too near her. That's part of the problem. For some reason she doesn't think of him by his last name-- Krycek, Cry CHECK, the check they've put on the two of them. But it's not mate. Mulder can't be stymied by these shadow puppets. But all of this is secondary right now because she has to explain everyone that Duane Barry is not what Mulder believes. She has to save Mulder from the blindness of his quests. All abductees are not created equal--

She has to save Mulder because Mulder would save her. This has nothing to do with currents or attraction-- did she just call it attraction? -- it's only about saving a man that matters to her. A brother. A friend. A partner. Not a lover because that would be nonsense.

If she closes her eyes, she can feel his hand on her back. She has to stop thinking in terms of cheap desire. What she's feeling is the chemical reaction between a male human animal and a female human animal. Lust. No, the better word is infatuation. Because that terrible strangeness is nothing more than simple infatuation. A crush, if you will. Mulder is sexy as hell, after all, and she's not blind.

Not only that. Granted, it could all be pheromonal, granted it could be instinctual, but Alex is a good-looking man, too, and she doesn't want to feel the sensation of his hand on her back on her face on her anywhere. It's physical, but it's mental, too. Pure beefcake has never been her style. She wants some substance, and Mulder has substance. After he finished kissing her, and she did not just think of him kissing her, it was a momentary aberration caused by the oxygen lack in this room, he could explain art or literature or science or why the original Nightmare on Elm Street far outstripped the sequels.

Duane Barry. These people are all so concerned about him and his ranting, why won't they listen to her talk? Do they want Mulder to die? It would be terrible if Mulder died, as if she'd lost her father all over again-- there, there, there, Dana! Again, she's made him into this dream, as though she were in high school again, and he were Jake Darcy, the handsome football player gawky Dana Scully adored. Jake Darcy never knew how often that geeky, awkward Navy brat watched him walk down the hall, the object of her affection. She is too old to have such a crush now, she decides.

But hadn't her stomach ached when Mulder had said, "If there's an iced tea in that bag, it could be love?" Hadn't she wished silently that she had chosen the cheap iced tea that always tasted like aluminum to her? But instead, because she was an adult, and adults don't moon after their friends, she had charged ahead with her root beer. The whole moment had been charged with something-- her infatuation with him, she thinks. Because he's not into her type, and besides, forget it. Boyfriends come and go. Mulder could last a lifetime. Mulder could be someone to argue with long past her needy, hormone-driven years.

She thinks he thinks she's hot, but just like Mulder, that's as far as she's going to go. They have professional boundaries. And she's certain that soon enough, his appeal will fade. That porn habit, for instance, is more than a little annoying. The smug, arrogant, I-have-a-secret attitude is more than annoying. It's downright infuriating. He's such a little boy-- a damned attractive little boy, but--

Duane Barry. She has to explain Duane Barry, to save Mulder, because that's the right thing to do. Because she wants to do it. She wants to help her friend and her partner, and this little twinge in her stomach, this want to rush over and be with Mulder, that's just a little madness, a little physical desire, just a phase. It'll pass with the moon.


End file.
